Jamie Carpenter thought he had a normal life, until the
guys in black showed up one night and shot his father to
death. After that, he and his mother moved. A lot. It was
hard for Marie Carpenter to maintain a job; harder still
for Jamie to behave at school. And then one night, several
years later, the men in black return after a series of
bizarre events that leave Jamie confused and reeling. Just
to really cap off his evening, Frankenstein shows up. It
is through this literary great that Jamie is first
introduced to DEPARTMENT 19. What is Department 19? Well,
if I tell you that, I ruin the whole story! Suffice it to
say, vampires (and even a few werewolves) make a regular
appearance, snatch his mom, and generally try to kill him.
There is some forbidden romance, a lot of violence, blood,
guts and gore (don't say I didn't warn you!) and more
challenges for the protagonist than you can shake a stick
at!
I thought this was a good story, although it stalled a bit
here and there. It was almost as if the author wasn't sure
how to move the story forward. While this says it's for
ages 14 and up, I would be leery of letting my young teen
read it. I'm a fan of fast-moving action stories, but
young people, in my opinion, don't need MORE exposure to
violence and blood, which is about 50% of this book. My
nephew is 14 and I'd say, I wouldn't want him to read it,
but again, that's just me. I'd recommend 16 and up.
The author definitely has a flair for action and individual
sections of the book are intriguing and well-done. But as
a whole, the overall arc of the story was not tight enough,
nor tense enough, for me. I think he could have told this
story in fewer than 540 pages, too. The thing is, I
wouldn't say not to read this; on the contrary I thought it
was an interesting take on vampires and I came to care for
the lead characters, wanting to know what happened to them,
but I did skim a bit, here and there. Also, I think the
bad guys were very well-developed, their personalities seen
from various perspectives, but the good guys were a little
generic for me. I'd say, with some tweaking, this could be
fantastic, but right now, I'd say it was pretty good. Keep
in mind that a young adult might not notice those things
that bothered me, as an adult....but I will say, I read a
lot of young adult fiction and there are other series I
would not have had a complaint about, that's all.
Jamie Carpenter\'s life will never be the same. His father
is dead, his mother is missing, and he was just rescued by
an enormous man named Frankenstein. Jamie is brought to
Department 19, where he is pulled into a secret organization
responsible for policing the supernatural, founded more than
a century ago by Abraham Van Helsing and the other survivors
of Dracula. Aided by Frankenstein's monster, a beautiful
vampire girl with her own agenda, and the members of the
agency, Jamie must attempt to save his mother from a
terrifyingly powerful vampire. Department 19 takes us
through history, across Europe, and beyond - from the
cobbled streets of Victorian London to prohibition-era New
York, from the icy wastes of Arctic Russia to the
treacherous mountains of Transylvania. Part modern thriller,
part classic horror, it\'s packed with mystery, mayhem, and
a level of suspense that makes a Darren Shan novel look like
a romantic comedy.
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